American Politics Journal -- GThe Worst Retail Christmas in a Decade

The Worst Retail Christmas in a Decade
By BartCop

Monday, Dec. 25, 2000 -- KNUCKLEDRAG, OKLAHOMA (bartcop.cpm via AmpolNS)

"The Worst Retail Christmas in Ten Years"
That's what they're calling this Christmas.
Now, let me start off by saying I know less about economics than everybody in
America except the idiot Smirk who was appointed to put his foot on our throats.
But I do have a memory and sometimes I pay attention.

In late 1992, America was still trying to recover from the horrible Reagan/Bush recessions.
Candidate Clinton had promised at every campaign stop that he was going to "focus like a laser beam" on the economy to get it moving again.

Supply-side apologists like to brag about how the current expansion began under trickle-down "magic" - but that's only because you can't start a recovery unless you're coming out of a recession, a recession THEY caused. It's easy to have "staggering growth" once you've turned America's great economic engines off.

But once Bill Clinton defeated Mr. "Recession? What recession?" in 1992, economists were pleasantly surprised at how profitable that year's Christmas was.
The reason?
People knew that help was on the way.

Wall Street and the economy are driven by expectations. When America saw the young
and energetic guy (the one who still had energy and a lust for life) was going to be in charge,
they relaxed and gave their kids the Christmas they had to postpone for the last few years.

Clinton gave America hope.
In a self-fulfilling prophesy, with their confidence rising, people started buying.
That lowered inventory, causing factories to crank back up and hire more workers.

Then in 1993, Clinton showed some of the first signs of his genius.
His new economic plan called for, yes, raising taxes on the top 1 percent of the super-rich.
Wall Street saw this bold move as PROOF that Clinton was not only going to talk about
fixing the runaway deficit crisis, but he was actually going to take some action.

The expectations game was being played again.
Expecting lower deficits, and less debt, and lower interest rates, Wall Street got brave
and started buying more and infusing more available cash into the economy.
Clinton's words and actions had a ripple effect, and things start getting better right away.

Likewise,
When people think hard times are coming, they start saving and they stop buying.
When they stop buying, inventory piles up, factories slow down, layoffs occur.
This is what's happening right now.

Smirk didn't say "Read my lips, no new taxes,"
No, the ignorant bastard went a lot farther than his Voodoo dad.
Smirk promised. "Tax cuts, so help me God."
He's repeating his Daddy's mistakes, but with much more strident rhetoric.

Scaring the shit out of Wall Street is easy for a president, even an appointed Smirk.
Wall Street heard Smirk's "Tax cuts, so help me God."
Wall Street heard Smirk's promise to fund the multi-trillion-dollar Star Wars program.
Wall Street heard Smirk's promise to fund the multi-trillion-dollar military "recovery."
Wall Street knows what happens when you cut taxes and spend money like Red-Ink Reagan.
You get massive, momentum-killing deficits.

This mad spending spree, combined with massive tax cuts for the super-wealthy,
tell Wall Street that we're no longer serious about deficit reduction. It tells Wall Street
that we're going back to the early eighties, and back into another dark recession.

...and don't blame this on the Nasdaq.

Every economist in America knows the Internet is the engine of the future.
Nothing can stop the Internet - not even Smirk's Voodoo horseshit.
Oh, sure, he can set us back on the curve a decade or so, but the Internet is here to stay
and it's not going anywhere. Pretty soon half of all business will be done online.
The Nasdaq will be back, but later, rather than sooner.

But because Sandy O'Connor is a tired, old, frustrated woman who wants to retire,
and Tony Scalia has an all-consuming need to be Top Dick on the Supreme Court, we had
an economic idiot installed against our will instead of our elected president and one result of
that is America's economy is going into the tank for a presidential term or two.

Merry Christmas, America.

Oh, if only there was an opposition party to the Republicans...